leicsmac

Right. But this is also a global problem, with global consequences.

Well, yes, that's the problem. The solution, however, is trickier. And we need a solution. Soon.

Yeah, this has been going on for at least a decade and possibly longer, and certainly envisioned for longer than that. For me that's entirely obvious and I find the idea of so many people still thinking that they're not at least subject to being influenced this way utterly absurd.

It is, but seeing as the man and everyone around him/who backs him lie as easily as most people breathe, I'm willing to wait a little to see how this plays out. One would think and hope that the Danes, at least, have been sensible.

Good question, there might be but wouldn't be sure on that one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c63d7lexyym1o Rehashing what is essentially an existing deal and selling it as a win. How very on brand for the used car salesman con artist ethos currently prevalent over there.

Interesting Web find: "A hostile state doesn't actually need to persuade Britain that Russia is wonderful. That's Cold War thinking. A much cheaper objective is to make Britons distrust one another, distrust expertise, distrust elections, distrust journalism and distrust institutions; amplify whichever existing grievances are most useful; make politics permanently furious; and leave everyone convinced that the person living three streets away is the enemy. At that point, a missile defence system is somewhat beside the point. And that's where education becomes national infrastructure. Not teaching children what political conclusions to reach, quite the opposite...teaching them how to ask: Who is making this claim? What's the original source? What evidence would disprove it? Is this photograph actually from the event being discussed? Does this graph start at zero? Is that account a person? Why is this story making me angry? Who benefits if I share it before checking it? Those aren't left-wing skills or right-wing skills... they're democratic immune-system skills. The more seriously you regard hostile information operations as a national-security threat, the harder it becomes to regard teachers, librarians, universities, public-service journalism and media literacy as fluffy civilian expenditure that can be trimmed whenever somebody wants another weapons programme. A fighter aircraft protects British airspace for perhaps thirty years. A teacher who teaches thirty children a year how to recognise bullshit may remain operational considerably longer."

Projection is practically Felon#47's middle name. And yes, he's textbook NPD with the classic DARVO tactics he uses. The really shitty thing is that because he uses them, it gives the everyday chuds that also use them a dark kind of validation.

Depends if the Dems get enough in the Senate to guarantee a conviction of any impeachment proceedings, I think. But yes, it could well be as bad as you say here, and if it is, it could get very ugly in terms of unrest.

That might well be so. I guess we'll find out soon enough. I will add though that people are already anticipating the voter suppression and various tactics to try to do anything to shift the vote short of blatant rigging of it. There will be pushback, and it might end up in severe civil unrest.

And, you fear, more to come. That's another side of that coin, yes. The world that we live in right now is so frustrating because it could be so much better, and the methods to make it better are reasonably obvious. So many people are dying, and suffering, unnecessarily.

Right. I'm amazed that it's passing from people's memories that, around five years ago, there was an actual, shown in real time, coup attempt against the legislative centre of the US government in order to overturn the results of a free and fair election. But what amazes (and distresses) me more is that the person directly responsible for inciting that coup attempt, with the express purpose of keeping power at any cost, was not only allowed to keep both his life and his freedom, to continue facilitating his massively harmful ideology, but was allowed to actually run for office again and win. That level of corruption in a supposed first world nation is... well, unreal.

A universe much better prepared for Covid when it occurs. One where Heather Heyer, to name but one, is still alive. Quite possibly one where advances in clean energy and therefore stopping carbon emissions have gone a fair bit further than they have in this universe. Better, in not so many words. That all being said, IMO the real inflection point on that score is early 2021. What kind of universe would we have if he'd actually seen justice for the events of January 6th 2021, much less gotten anywhere near winning a second term? It's clear to me that his second term has already been much more damaging than his first, and we're not even halfway through it yet.

We should be so lucky.

Been there more times than I can recall, mate. Anyway, yes, you're absolutely right, now it's just required to convince a part of both the UK media and political class that the US under the current administration is indeed a pariah state run by self interested psychopaths and to not encourage behaviour otherwise.

That conflation has been blatantly and nefariously weaponised by those who want to continue doing harm for their own horrible self interest for a while now, yes. In the face of that, the distinction needs to continue be made by people who are actually interested in peace (and not the kind of peace that a graveyard brings) at every possible opportunity.

I floated out of the cinema after that one. Still remains one of the best movies I have ever seen.

He's a proper heavyweight statesman, and the world sorely needs that right now.

The Aussies, NZ, Scandics and (dare I say it) the UK should be looking for similarly closer ties, too. Edit: might have to come up with a different name for the bloc at that point, though.

Well, yes, I know they take the religious stuff over there pretty seriously but...

Someone should have told Johnny Cash, Buffalo Springfield et al that then too, evidently.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx3051ye5j0nt Felon#47 taking this news about a possible new alliance in about the way one would expect, then.

That's plausible. In that case, I very much hope that you're wrong and the Florida authorities are both competent and not that corrupt. It is after all obvious how much of a flight risk they are so there really shouldn't be a problem with holding them for longer. If they do somehow slip the net, well...that's the point where some wannabe vigilante might need to step up, isn't it? And they'd better get it right.

What is the most likely path forward here, then?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ck0e3rnxev27o Canada, Oz, NZ, the EU, the Scandic nations... and the UK. Build a bloc that can stand by itself and for values that are different to the petty and inevitably destructive nationalism that all the other leading players (bar perhaps China) are looking to exhibit.